Here we are sitting in Mackay Harbour having spent a fun couple of days catching up with Keith and Ann Dittmar–McCollim. We timed our run to avoid some stronger south-easterly winds and tomorrow, with more favourable winds predicted, we continue our journey south.

So much seems to have happened since we left Cairns. It was sad leaving the lovely people of St Margaret’s church… we had a great send off with so much kindness from the folks and Ken indulged himself on his final Sunday and got to “play the drum” with the Islander musicians (he’d wanted to get his hands on that drum for ages!) First Romance now sports two garlands adorning the clock and barometer given to us by the “Flower girls”.
The Captain of the ship reckons he is at last learning to be more patient with waiting for the right conditions - having had a “challenging” sail from Magnetic Island south to Bowen (and having ignored the opinion of the Admiral that we should wait one more day for sea and winds to abate).

After being holed up for a week waiting for strong south-easterlies to subside Ken became stir crazy and decided to go for it as soon as a change arrived. Unfortunately the crew failed to mutiny…. which they should have. The problem was that it takes time for the seas to settle - which they hadn’t! With a 100 nautical mile (180 km) trip ahead of us we expected it to take about 20-24 hours. Instead we took 34 hours and covered 126 nm (due to tacking) with 2/3rd of the trip spent bashing into the seas head on – no fun on a dark cloudy night without moon light and waves we couldn’t see hitting the yacht head on.

To add to the angst, the halyard holding up the jib (headsail) gave way – mercifully during daylight hours. This meant fully lowering the sail, attaching an alternative halyard and then – hardest of all – re-hoisting the sail single handed (feeding it onto the furler) while Janice had to stay on the helm as we still have no workable self-steering for heavy weather. The sail wouldn’t feed properly onto the furler and took numerous trips from the winch on the mast to the furler at the bow, feed a bit more, back to the winch to raise it another 6 inches, back to the furler….. meanwhile waves were coming over the bow. It was about this time that a thought bubble was seen floating over Ken’s head reading “This is a young man’s game!” We both felt like saying ‘stop the boat I want to get off” but you realise…just keep going and eventually you’ll get there.

Next morning it was soooo.. reviving to see the sun come up over the sea, with the wind direction improving a little and the sea flattening - it was simply lovely motor-sailing past Abbot Point with the autopilot going. This facility is a terminal for loading large ships that reaches well out to sea. The experience on the new day was so different to the previous 24 hours. As we were nearing our destination Janice was talking on the phone to a highly experienced sailing friend and saying we felt as though we’d just completed “Bashing into the Wind 101” – she said “Yes – and the first thing you learn is DON’T DO IT”. When eventually we motored into Edgecumbe Bay in the late afternoon to anchor behind beautiful Stone Island lying just off Bowen Harbour, and with the sun setting over this lovely peaceful spot, we drank to that….and agreed – yep, don’t do it! Just as well the anchor didn’t drag that night because we would never have heard it.

The sailing since that long haul has been much more fun. We’ve had some delightful shorter day sails – across Edgecumbe Bay to Gloucester Passage, next day down to Airlie Beach (sadly motoring all the way with light unfavourable winds). We then spent a few days in the Whitsundays – snorkelling off Border Island…. but sadly the reef there has been battered by a cyclone since last we snorkelled off the island about 10 years ago.

Our plans are to keep moving south so that we are back in Moreton Bay by December. But before we get there we will be trying to stop at anchorages we missed on the way up, at least as far as we can.